I just watched La Dolce Vita yesterday and this is the third Fellini film I have seen/tried so far. The other two being Satyricon and 8 1/2. I usually give any movie maker two chances and with supposedly great directors, I give them three. In my opinion, all above three are terrible and I am at lost as to the appeal of his films. * * * They all seem to be glorifications (in the same sense that many summer flicks glorify sex and violence) of shallowness and vulgarity. Ok one may say that his films are about exposing the decadence in the world. But shallow and vulgar people are very boring. A film of almost 3 hrs (as in the case of La Dolce Vita and Satyricon) of this sort is a sentence. The experience of watching Satyricon and La Dolce Vita boils down to this: The director dumps a pile of horse manure on you and you jump up all upset and yell, "What did you do that for?" The director comes back and says, "Ah, there is real horse manure in the real world. Have you ever thought of that? I bet you haven't. I am letting you experience the real world!" You think about it for a few minutes and say to yourself, "Ok, let's see what's next...". Wam, comes a bucket of dog poop on your face. You jump up again and say, "I had that. Why did you do that again?" The director comes back, "Oh no, that's not horse manure, but dog poop. They are different. I bet you didn't know that". You quiet down to see what's next. The dog poop is followed by cat litter and on and on for three hours... As for 8 1/2, I turned it off after 45 minutes, so I can't say too much about it. Antonioni also made a film about shallow people, "L'Avventura". For some reason, this does not seem to bother me as much. In fact, I actually enjoy the first half of it. The scenes on the island are very thoughtful, meditative and even mysterious. The second half is boring, but no where as annoying as Fellini's stuff. Eugene Xia